Dear Colleagues: The CapacityPlus Project (http://www.capacityplus.org), which is focused on addressing the global health workforce crisis, has launched a Promising Practices series that aims to identify a set of interventions with potential for replication/scale-up around a selected topic each year. This year, we are looking at interventions to address gender discrimination related to sexual harassment, pregnancy, and family responsibilities on health worker pre-service education (for both students and faculty), including on the quality of education that students receive; students' attrition rates; and faculty composition and careers.

We would be very interested to hear from you about resources, organizations, projects, or individuals that are working on this topic and/or may have additional suggestions. In particular, we are collecting both published and unpublished examples of interventions. While we would like to collect examples from the health sector, we would be happy to receive information on examples from the education and other sectors.

Dear CrystalAs a nurse educator in a very diverse associate degree program in NJ, I am curious,is this topic a major issue in nursing education world wide? If so, I honestly have never heard of it. Are certain countries discouraging nursing students based upon gender or other issues? Are pregnant students removed from nursing programs? At my program many of the issues you discuss are more related to how they impact the student or the family during the program (single moms, abusive relationships) but I honestly have never heard of sexual discrimination or removal from programs due to gender or pregnancy. While I see literature supporting the preceived alienation of male students in a female dominated profession, I cannot remember seeing research about the other problems recently. I would think that with a global nursing shortage, the lack of educational opportunites due to access or cost would be a bigger issue or higher priority. Can you elaborate about what is driving this research? Thanks Tracey Siegel MSN RN CNE

Hello Tracey, Thank you for your interest and for raising excellent questions. Certainly, access and cost to education are major issues in the field of human resources for health (HRH), both in medical and nursing schools; however, it is important to note that globally, enrollment/matriculation rates have not equalled graduation rates. So even once we get students into the institutions, they are not all graduating. There are numerous factors that contribute to the attrition of medical/nursing/other students, of which sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination, and family discrimination are a subset. This topic has not been studied / evaluated rigorously, yet it has a significant potential impact on HRH.

These issues, as you say, impact students, families, and faculty during the period of education such that they may affect students' learning environments, students' motivation to continue their education, or faculty's ability to advance their careers. For example, in some countries / institutions: students are required to pay extra fees or tuition to re-start, redo, or extend their education after becoming pregnant; students are unable to fulfill clinical duties when they are held at night because they must also take care of their families; or students feel uncomfortable / unsafe due to sexual harassment, leading to added stress / decreased ability to focus on their studies. Any one of these examples could affect whether a student actually learns or is able or willing to continue her/his studies, which directly relates to whether training institutions can produce qualified graduates.

As you mentioned, nursing is a female-dominated profession. Given this, what programs, policies, etc. have training institutions put in place that enable (for example) female students to also fulfill a role as a mother and still keep up in school? Or that enable female faculty to gain tenure while maintaining a family?

I hope this is helpful and of course welcome additional thoughts, suggestions, or information!Best, Crystal Ng

At college I had multiple encounters of discrimination from faculty members. I reported it to our schools multicultural director, and who shared it with the dean. The response was that I could file harrassment against that instructor. I thought what would that do other than add to the bad reputation that I have due to the continuous attempts of trying to fight for equality and defend myself from discrimination. What's your opinion? Thank you in advance.

I had the same happen to me years ago, i wish now i had have done something about it back then but it felt like i had nobody to turn to back then. I'm sure things are better nowadays, i wish i knew who you should speak to but i'm sure others here will be able to help

Our university has developed a referral website for students who are either pregnant or who have young families to care for. The website gives basic information on typical questions that students have about health during pregnancy; university related issues such as effects of time-off on scholarships, student housing issues with a new baby, etc.; financial aid; legal aid; community assistance programs for health and social needs; student rights protected by federal and state laws; etc. This website was developed as a multi-departmental effort with representatives from each of the administrative departments within the university as well as our nursing maternal-child faculty members and our faculty members from our center for women's studies.

Dimos wrote:At college I had multiple encounters of discrimination from faculty members. I reported it to our schools multicultural director, and who shared it with the dean. The response was that I could file harrassment against that instructor. I thought what would that do other than add to the bad reputation that I have due to the continuous attempts of trying to fight for equality and defend myself from discrimination. What's your opinion? Thank you in advance.

I am very sorry to hear that you encountered discrimination. It is important for institutions to create supportive environments and implement policies that will eliminate discrimination. I will be posting links to the results of our work - perhaps your school would be interested in reviewing it. I wish you the best.

Mary G wrote:I had the same happen to me years ago, i wish now i had have done something about it back then but it felt like i had nobody to turn to back then. I'm sure things are better nowadays, i wish i knew who you should speak to but i'm sure others here will be able to help

I am very sorry to hear that you also experienced issues during your education. I hope that institutions will continue to improve their policies and programs to prevent such discrimination from occurring.

bgray wrote:Our university has developed a referral website for students who are either pregnant or who have young families to care for. The website gives basic information on typical questions that students have about health during pregnancy; university related issues such as effects of time-off on scholarships, student housing issues with a new baby, etc.; financial aid; legal aid; community assistance programs for health and social needs; student rights protected by federal and state laws; etc. This website was developed as a multi-departmental effort with representatives from each of the administrative departments within the university as well as our nursing maternal-child faculty members and our faculty members from our center for women's studies.

This sounds like a helpful resource for the university community! Has any evaluation been done to see how often students and faculty access it?